


Stay

by MJosephine10



Category: Star Wars, Star Wars: Sequel Trilogy - Fandom
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-30
Updated: 2019-08-30
Packaged: 2020-09-30 16:03:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20449769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MJosephine10/pseuds/MJosephine10





	Stay

Ben awoke to a strange pressure wrapped around his right hand.

He could hear voices—thick and blurred and garbled, and there was a blazing pain in his forehead and right side but it was the pressure on his hand that he couldn’t place. That and a presence on his right, shadowy but warm that seemed to move towards and away from him. It was the same heat as the pressure on his hand. He didn’t know what it was, just that he wanted it, all of it, and it hurt when it moved. There was an icy coldness in his chest and heart and the heat made it better.

There was a stir and a rush of movement, the heart shifted as if to leave, the pressure on the hand loosened.

He turned towards it and begged it.

_Please don’t leave me._

* * *

The battle had been over quickly, a minor skirmish before the bigger storm.

But Ben had rushed to protect her and taken a wound to his chest and head in the process.

They had gotten him out just in time.

Rey sat by his bed with both hands around his larger one. She wouldn’t let it go, even while she spoke with Finn and Poe in hushed tones about the plan ahead.

Rose came and went with supplies for bandaging, food for all of them, as well as practical suggestions for their next plan of attack.

Quiet resignation hung in the air.

They wouldn’t win but for now they could live and move in a semblance of peace. No one spoke more than they had to.

Ben was in and out of consciousness. He tossed and turned like a restless child, or lay very still with white face. It was his total helplessness as much as his last act of sacrifice that softened Poe and the few remaining members of a weakened resistance to allowing him to come aboard and even to offer him the help they had. It wasn’t much and wouldn’t be enough but what help they could offer they gave.

The room cleared of people drifting away to find some quiet place before the morning.

Rey stayed by the bed.

“Are you sure you don’t want to get some sleep?” Rose asked quietly at the door.

Rey turned towards her voice and the figure on the bed moved restlessly and muttered something neither could hear.

“I think I’ll stay here for a while. I know I can’t sleep anyway.”

Rose gave her shoulder a light squeeze in silent sympathy and went away.

When she was gone, Rey smoothed the hair away from his damp forehead and pulled his blanket more closely around him. She brought his hand to her lips and kissed it three times, briskly and practically, before rearranging it again between her palms. He turned again closer to her and his eyes opened for a moment.

They were dry and unseeing.

And then, quietly she heard him say, with great simplicity, “I love you. Thank you.”

Then he fell asleep.

Rey stayed the whole night.


End file.
